Who’s Your Fantasy Beach Companion?

Last week’s Washington Post featured a nifty column in which they asked a few authors (no romance authors, of course) to name a fictional character with whom they’d like to spend a day at the beach.

As we’re heading into a lazy summer weekend, I thought it would be fun to ask our readers the same – only this time we won’t leave our romance. So, here’s the question: What hero or heroine is your fantasy day at the beach companion?

Here’s a clue to mine:

“He had broad shoulders, mirrored sunglasses, and no smile and Sophie could hear ominous music on the soundtrack in her head as her heart started to pound. His fair hair shone in the late-afternoon sun, his profile was classic and beautiful, the sleeves of his tailored white shirt were rolled precisely to his elbows, and his khaki slacks were immaculate and pressed. He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.”

Recognize that perfect prose? It’s from Jennifer Crusie’s incredible, fantastic, and stupendous Welcome to Temptation and it describes the moment when heroine Sophie Dempsey and Mayor Phineas T. Tucker first meet. The sexy, smart, dry-witted Phin is my choice for several reasons. First, well…he’s hot. And he knows exactly what he’s doing. But mostly I love a funny guy and I particularly love a dry-witted funny guy and I think he’d be the ideal companion with whom to exchange dry-witted observations on the passing beach scene and then have some big girl-big boy fun later.

If only.

So, who’s your pleasure? (BTW, if there seems to be some kind of consensus going with a number of the same names cropping up, we’ll take our shallow preoccupation even further and post a poll on the blog to pick AAR’s Hottest Summer Fantasy.)

So–who’s my pleasure, Sandy? Without going too far back in the years of reading, I came up with three. Can’t really decide among them since they all appealed to me while reading their books. There are even more, I know that, but I just can’t think too far back right now. Here goes–

Griff Burkett from Play Dirty by Sandra Brown
Duncan Swift from High Noon by Nora Roberts
Reuben Montoya from Shiver by Lisa Jackson

Okay, just one more–
Bobby Dodge from Alone by Lisa Gardner

My only reasons for choosing these guys at this point is that their characters have stayed pretty front and center for me, so that must mean something.

Mick from Judith Ivory’s The Proposition. Definitely. As Ellen Micheletti ,the reviewer of this book, said, this guy is adorable. The main reason I am picking him is because he made me laugh, God bless him and Judith Ivory. (This is the same thing Jessica, the red-haired vamp, said of Roger Rabbit. It is also what Anne Bancroft gave as one of her reasons for marrying Mel Brooks.)

Mick loves Winnie even though she is not a paragon of beauty. He helps her break out of her shell so she can be herself. I liked that he came from a huge family and took his responsibility of providing for them seriously and with great affection. I also liked his attachment to his animals and the care he took of them. The scenes that I remember with most fondness are: (1) at the Bull and Dun tavern where Winnie danced on the tables, and (2) at the ball where Mick frequently interrupts his enjoyment of the evening to go care for Freddy, his dying ferret.

That he was also tall, handsome, virile, strong, and had a crooked smile was only a plus.

Well, Sandy, would you consider sharing Phin for a day with me Welcome to Temptation is one of the few books I reread regularly… Apart from all the things you already mentioned, Phin also owns a bookshop, which in real life would make him an interesting acquaintance in any case. My other choice as a beach companion would be Luke Costello from Marian Keyes’ Rachel’s Holiday. Just because I like him.

I hate to sound unimaginative, but it’s Phin for me too. For all the reasons Sandy listed. I can’t count the number of times I’ve re-read Welcome to Temptation, and I swear it gets better every time. I’ve actually been listening to it on audiobook while I commute the last few days. It makes the drive so much fun.

So, does it have to be a male character? I only ask, because I have had some fun with my female friends at the beach…even though Phin is very delicious, I would pick Sookie Stackhouse. I am smack dab in the middle of these books and I really like her. I think she’d be fun….plus, I could get the info on her vampire boyfriends. Well, I’m only at Bill at this point, but still….

the only fictional character i’ve ever fallen in love with is Kevin Tucker, from SEP’s THOM. i can’t find any flaw in him =D

Kevin Tucker didn’t even know her name! Let this be a lesson, Molly thought as she gazed at all that dangerous gorgeousness.
Right then she knew she had to find a way to protect herself from him. Okay, so he was drop-dead good-looking. So were a lot of men. Granted, not many of them had that particular combination of dark blond hair and brilliant green eyes. And not many had a body like his, which was trim and sculpted rather than bulky. Still, she wasn’t stupid enough to be taken in by a man who was nothing more than a great body, a pretty face, and an on/off charm switch.
Well, she was stupid enough—witness her late, unlamented crush on him—but at least she’d known she was being stupid.
One thing she wouldn’t do was come across as a fawning groupie. He was going to see her at her absolute snottiest! She conjured up Goldie Hawn in Overboard for inspiration. “You’re going to have to leave, Ken. Oh, excuse me, I mean Kevin. It is Kevin, right?”
She must have gone too far because the corner of his mouth kicked up. “We’ve been introduced at least three times. I’d think you’d remember.”
“There are just so many football players, and you all look alike.”

From NBBM:

The door swung open. She saw a bare chest. Blond chest hair. A pair of green eyes.
“I—I’m sorry. I seem to have the wrong room.”
“I guess that depends on who you’re looking for, buttercup.”
He was young, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, and arrogant. “I was looking for Mr. Bonner.”
“Aren’t you lucky, then, because you found something better. I’m Kevin Tucker.”

and

“Anybody home?”
The female triumvirate turned in one body, and all of them began to smile like sunbeams as his backup quarterback came strolling around the corner of the house like he owned the place.
Just when he’d thought things couldn’t get worse . . .
Kevin took in the women on the porch, the two Bonner men standing below, and the shotgun. He arched his eyebrow at Cal, nodded at Jim, then moved up on the porch to join the women.
“You beautiful ladies told me I could stop by for some of that fried chicken, so I took you at your word.” He leaned against the post Cal had painted only a month earlier. “How’s the little guy doing today?” With a familiarity that indicated he’d done it before, he reached out and patted Jane’s belly.
Cal had him off the porch and flat on the ground within seconds.

While I’d normally pick Roarke for just about anything, I just don’t picture him for a day at the beach…so I’m going with either Kevin Tucker from SEP’s THOM or Dean Robillard from her NBC & Match Me if You Can, mainly because he spent a number of fun days with Annabelle at my very favorite beach, Oak St. Beach in Chicago.

“”Wait for me, my lady, though the wind blows chill and cold, wait while all is locked in winter’s icy fist. I will dream of you, my lady, hot dreams of fire and gold, Dreams of gemlike passion to wondrous to resist. And if you’re on vacation when I return, my lady, I swear I will be most extremely pissed.”” – Gift of Fire – Jayne Ann Krentz.

OK, y’all have already named three of my favorites: Eric Northman, Jamie Fraser, and Phin Tucker, although Eric is #1 at the moment, ’cause I’m totally into season two (and the whole book series) of True Blood. Just for variety I’ll have to add Adam Black from KMM’s Immortal Highlander ’cause he would be a riot.

Harry Milburn, Earl of Cambourne, from Jessica Benson’s “The Accidental Duchess.” I loved the book more than the AAR reviewer did, mainly because of the hero. He’s smart and attractive, but what did it for me was the fact that he plays the cello in the morning. *sigh*

If given a choice, and if I could adjust my age [81] to a more appropriate one, I think I’d choose Luke Danner, from Krentz’s All Night Long. Man’s a charmer and a sturdy soul, an irresistible combination to my mind. He also sounds quite handsome, which would never be a drawback. I particularly liked the way he responded to Irene’s poorly worded but whole-hearted recommendation in the presence of the restaurant crowd.

“He wasn’t acting like a man about to die. Nay, the captive wasn’t pleading for his life or whimpering for a quick end. He didn’t look like a dying man either. His skin wasn’t pale or covered with goose bumps, but sun-bronzed bronzed and weather-toughened. Damn, he wasn’t even shivering. Aye, they had stripped the nobleman, yet under all the layers of refinement stood the proud warlord, looking as primitive and as fearless as the whispered tales boasted. Before their eyes, the Wolf had been revealed.

…The Wolf is Duncan of Wexton – from Honor’s Splendour
(Julie Garwood at her best IMO)

I can’t decide between two men: Iain Maitland from The Secret by Julie Garwood and Acheron Parthenopaeus from the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Both are equally capable of keeping me entertained on a secluded desert isle, and should we be “unable to return to civilization”, could keep us alive until help arrives. Here’s hoping to a slow rescue.